What’s Your Comment Policy?
I can safely say I’ve had my fair share of bad comments. In fact, just this week I received probably the harshest one yet (spelling errors and all):
hello my name is Alix i live in the uk and i have one thing to say to you. you call yourself a writer ok not got a problem with that but i think a writters main obective in life is to wite about subjects in a open minded way your comments on many subjects are ofensive, outragous and very critical. i find myself not seeing you as a wirtter but a very one minded and one opinioned person who in “My Opinon” should take a brake from writting on subjects which you clearly have no understaning of or concept of. and focus on what the world is really about and im sure you will cearly realise that the probem with this world todays is people like you! who set out there day to cause upset and complete disruption for every one around you. and this i find only happens in people who inside themselves are very comfused and unhappy, so to stop these things from happeing you find it in yourself to unnesserly put these insulting and agin very outragouse commments out there. to be honest i wish people like you didin’t have internet acces becasue your comments do nothing but cause great harm and is a waste of time.
that is all i have to say i hope you read this and understand what iam saying to you and to hoestly find it in yourself to take this as a heping hand.
So what to do when you receive comments like the one above? Granted, it wasn’t a death threat or anything, but it kinda makes you wonder if others might feel the same way. And if so, do you care?
My comment policy on my personal site is fairly loose. I will allow comments as long as they don’t personally attack me, defame others, and don’t have unnecessary swearing. My policy warns that to break the policy is to risk deletion. And, I will admit, the above comment was pushed rather quickly into my moderation queue until I could decide what to do with it.
On raproject, we have a similar comment policy. Personal attacks aren’t allowed, and neither is advertising. We also try to promote comments that add to the discussion.
Another example of a comment policy is over at One Man’s Blog. He doesn’t allow commercial links and would like commenters to leave real names (no nicknames).
My question to the reader, what is your comment policy? And if you have one, what kind of comments do you like to have?
I’ll conclude with a quote from Liz Strauss’s WordCamp transcript:
We have one rule on my blog: be nice.
[...]
I’m a firm believer in the more rules you put on a blog, the more loopholes people will find to break them.
Andrew says...
Surely that isn’t about you? Did I miss something?
I have seen many other blogs where comments like that simply get bombarded with follow ups about the spelling and grammar but I don’t think that is the right approach. I would be tempted to dismiss it as blatant trolling, but the logical response is to ask for suggestions and treat it as a learning exercise.
There are also assertions in that comment that I would just disagree with and I would certainly expect some reasons to be forthcoming.
I have often been tempted to add a clause to my comment policy which says simply: If you’re not adding to the discussion then I reserve the right to delete your comment, irrespective of the content of that comment, but to date I haven’t needed to impose anything. Most people who respond are logical and reasonable. I don’t think my writing style really stirs emotions; it isn’t intended to.
Sue @ TameBay says...
Wow. On behalf of nice British people, I would like to apologise for Alix :O
It’s funny, I get much more upset about commenters attacking other commenters than I do about commenters attacking me (which fortunately happens very rarely). What does really annoy me (but is inevitable on a blog about eBay, I guess) are the crazy conspiracy theorists who post diatribes about how this massive multinational company has it in for them personally and yada yada yada. I like my commenters with some element of logic and rationality about them.
Ronald Huereca says...
@Sue,
Considering both you and Andrew are from the UK, apology accepted.
Logic and rationality are good traits. I also like an objective thinker, or one who can think both sides of the argument.
@Andrew,
Yes, people get fairly animated on my personal site. I’ve even been told to grow male body parts. Oh well :/
As you stated, the comment would have been taken more seriously if some effort were taken for some constructive feedback. Instead, the comment is basically saying, “Get off the Internet.” If that’s the case, then the person could apply the same comments and logic to himself.
Sue @ TameBay says...
Well, a post I wrote yesterday has generated rather a lot of discussion (over 100 comments and they’re still coming), which has given me a few more thoughts:
~ I prefer commenters who are not anonymous, especially if they’re making important points. It adds so much weight to your argument if you are prepared to put a real ID behind it.
~ when your commenters are having a good debate amongst themselves, it can be good to stand back and let them get on with it, rather than going with the ‘respond to every comment’ approach. This is particularly true when the issue is one of those where the whole world has an opinion. Even though it’s gotten a little heated, a couple of people who really know what they’re talking about said to me last night that hands-off was the way to go with this issue.
~ likewise, comment-threads can become self-regulating. We’ve had a couple of people correct facts in other comments, and also some where I’ve thought, “ohhh, I need to tell that person to calm down a bit”, but someone else has done it for me.
~ gravatars should be compulsory! I have a whole new bunch of Marks who I can’t tell apart from the old Marks, and several Steves. I’m so confused!!
Ronald Huereca says...
@Sue,
I had a problem with an anonymous commenter just the other day on a different blog. He ripped my article/technique, but wasn’t gutsy enough to leave a real name or e-mail address. That irks me!
On busier blogs, I’ve found that indeed commenters start talking to eachother. Here’s a good example. It’s also the same post were that anonymous commenter ripped me.
On the gravatar front, I love them. It’s so easy to tell people apart, and I usually remember a gravatar a lot better than a name.